Tuesday, 1 January 2013

Jottings from the Tropics: 1 January 2013

The green tree frog has decided that it simply cannot share a house with me and has packed its belongings into a little polka dot handkerchief and moved into the garden. I am not sure what prompted the shift. Yes, I did give it such a fright one night that it jumped into the fish tank, but it's an amphibian, for heaven's sake — a nocturnal swim should be welcome. And, yes, I did tread on it when it was hopping across the kitchen...but that was an accident. It's a tree frog. I wasn't expecting it to be on the floor.

Anyway, the frog is now living among a collection of empty plant pots by the front door. I hope it enjoys camping out.

— o O o —

Bush stone-curlews spend their days snoozing in the shade and their nights performing their strange and magical choral works. When I was in the rainforest, I only heard them calling in the distance. They lived in the cattle paddocks in the bend of the river and the sound would drift across when the wind blew from the south east. And on some nights here, the scrubfowl join in with overwrought cackling. They were a regular feature of the rainforest. Scrubfowl and stone-curlew is an odd mix.

— o O o —

I was going to take some more photos of the wonderful not-Christmas beetles on the grevilleas, but they seem to have got wind of this and are clustered together on one inflorescence high up on the tree. I can see them from the office window. When I look through the binoculars, I can count them — five shining green and gold insects among the peach-coloured flowers. How did I not notice these glorious insects before?